Topic: Castlevania: Harmony Of Dissonance (GBA)

[TerraEsperZ]

I know Zeric claimed this game back on the previous iteration of the board and were he to finish before me, I'd gladly let him have his maps on the site. In the mean time, I've gona back and remapped this game from scratch since my first maps didn't include anything like candles, items and even had the edges of some rooms missing.



Seeing as I have no idea when I'll ever finish these and not wanting anyone to steal my work, you'll have to do with these half-size, color-reduced previews. Note that the red lines make up the grid that I use to align every room in the game, but unfortunately, because of inconsistencies on the part of the map programmers, some horizontal doorways don't align from one room to another (unlike Circle Of The Moon and Aria Of Sorrow).



Entrance A:



http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/6162/hodentranceaha8.png



Marble Corridor A:



http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4303/hodmarblecorridoragc1.png



Room Of Illusion A:



http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8876/hodroomofillusionauh7.png



The Wailing Way A:



http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/3199/hodthewailingwayakr3.png



Shrine Of The Apostates A:



http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/3646/hodshrineoftheapostatesazl0.png



Castle Treasury B:



http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/4016/hodcastletreasurybef2.png



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[DarkWolf]

I'm sure the finished ones will look good.  I suppose you like working on multiple projects?  I'm trying hard not to deviate from the one I'm working on now (especially since I'm almost done).

[TerraEsperZ]

When it comes to working on personal projects, I can't seem to stay focused on any given one, mostly because I either go bored or face some difficulties which make me want to switch to something else for a while.



For some people like JonLeung, it means seeing promises for maps that (almost) never materialize unfortunately, though I'm really hoping to finish the many mostly-finished maps real soon.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[JonLeung]

If you remember my GameSHOUT.com radio interview, I mentioned that what I would want above all else would be a complete, pixel-perfect map of one of Dracula's castles from the recent, still-2D, Metroid-inspired Castlevania games (some games say the castle itself is called Castlevania, actually) in its entirety.



So yes, I wouldn't gripe about the apparent lack of Treasure Master if this were to be completed.



Knowing Terra, though, that is an if, isn't it?  ;P

[TerraEsperZ]

Harmony Of Dissonance has a big advantage though: it's incredibly easy to map, it's just that there are two castles and they are quite big so it would still take some time to map.



Considering that the only thing that usually makes me move to another project is when I just don't know how to proceed anymore (the tips on the Treasure Master maps, the incredibly fucked up layer system for Metroid Fusion, how to separate and connect the disjointed maps for Out Of This World and Heart Of The Alien, etc), Harmony might be finished sooner than you'd expect if I start working on it full time. I had already mapped (although poorly) 70% of the first castle in a few weeks last year when I first tried mapping it. So hey, why not? Harmony Of Dissonance it is!



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[TerraEsperZ]

Skeleton Cave B:



http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/6180/hodskeletoncavebmt6.png



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[TerraEsperZ]

Castle Top Floor B:



http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/3496/hodcastletopfloorbkb4.png



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[DarkWolf]

If it can be logically broken up then I think the smaller maps are better.  Not only does a map of that size take a bit of memory to make, but it also takes a bit of memory to view, especially in a browser window.

[TerraEsperZ]

I'll submit all the castle areas separately and *might* make a half-size map of the whole castle just for show.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[TerraEsperZ]

Here's something fun that I did for the map of the Castle Top Floor B.



In Symphony Of The Night, when climbing the last stairway to Dracula's chamber, you can see a 3-D version of the Clock Tower in the background which turns as you climb, thus giving the whole castle a real sense of size and dimension.



Well, Harmony Of Dissonance tries to do a similar effect, but being sprite-based instead, it doesn't exactly look as good and for my map, I thought I could do better.



First, here are two shots of said tower in Harmony.



Seen from the leftmost viewpoint:





Seen from the rightmost viewpoint:





Neither of these look really good as most of the details like the clock face are hidden by the way the sprites are scaled.



Using the tile viewer in Visualboy Advance, I managed to get both faces of the tower in their entirety. However, they couldn't be used as such since that would mean that both faces would be facing the same way.







Each side is 68 pixels wide. However, if the tower was seen from a 45 degree angle (a halfway rotation between the two faces), they would both appear to be less wide. Using good old trigonometry, I calculated the cos value for a 45 degree angle which gave me something like 0.70.



In short, that meant that the faces would appear to have 70% of their real width. I thus used Irfanview to resize both faces horizontally only by making them 70% of their original size, making sure to use the 'resize only' option which wouldn't blend pixels together for a smoother but less 'pixely' look.



This was the result which was incorporated in the final map:





Neat, isn't it? And much better looking than the first two examples as seen in-game.



Oh yeah, and here's another map preview:



Luminous Cavern B:



http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/214/hodluminouscavernbki7.png



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[TerraEsperZ]

Lookey here, it's the amazing rotating tower!







---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[Grizzly]

cool, how did you create the spinning version? Did you create the full rotating effect manually or is there a program that does the work when giving it the two sides?

And the clock tower on the final map does also look very nice.

[TerraEsperZ]

All done by hand.I calculated the width of the faces at every 15 degree angles, scaled them properly and then assembled them in a way that made it look like it was spinning.



A fun litle diversion



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[TerraEsperZ]

Okay, I'm still working on more maps but I made a finer rotation of the tower, in increments of 5 degrees instead of 15. You can see the difference:



 



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[JonLeung]

The faster one seems smoother, actually.  Perhaps on the slower one there's more time to notice the distortions as pixels get smushed - and there's more frames for them to be smushed in.  Or something.



Now get back to work on the maps!  *snaps whip*